The more Lafayette studied Washington the more he was confirmed in
his first swift impression. "Our general is a man really created for
this Revolution, which could not succeed without him," he wrote the
Duc d'Ayen. "I see him more intimately than any one else in the world,
and I see him worthy the adoration of his country.... His name will be
revered in future ages by all lovers of liberty and humanity."
Such admiration seemed unlikely ground upon which to work for
Washington's undoing, but this was what his enemies attempted. Part
of their plan was to win away Washington's trusted friends, and
Lafayette's good will would be particularly valuable, because he
was looked upon in a way as representing France. The winter proved
unusually severe, and when the sufferings of the soldiers at Valley
Forge began to be noised abroad criticism of Washington increased. It
was pointed out that Burgoyne's captured army was being fed at American
expense, that General Clinton's forces were comfortably housed in New
York, while General Howe and his officers were enjoying a brilliant
[Pg 92]social season at Philadelphia; but at Valley Forge there was
only misery. General Conway was there himself, working up his plot.
Lafayette was so kindly disposed that it was hard for him to believe
others evil-minded. Also he was frankly ambitious. Thomas Jefferson
once said of him that he had "a canine appetite" for fame. Conway
played skilfully on both these traits, professing great friendship for
Lafayette and throwing out hints of glory to be gained in service under
General Gates, to whom he knew Lafayette had written a polite note of
congratulation after Saratoga. Lafayette appears to have taken it all
at its face value until an incriminating letter from Conway to Gates
fell into hands for which it was never intended. Then Lafayette went
directly to Washington, meaning to unburden his heart, but the general
was engaged and could not see him. He returned to his quarters and
wrote him a long letter, breathing solicitude in every line. Washington
answered with his usual calm dignity, but in a way to show that the
young man's devotion was balm to his spirit.
Conway had played upon Lafayette's homesickness also. Family news came
to him very slowly. It was not until Christmas was being celebrated at
Valley Forge with such sorry festivities as the camp could afford that
he learned of the birth of his little daughter, Anastasie, which had
occurred in the previous July. All the camp rejoiced with him, but the
news increased his desire to be with his wife and children, if only for
[Pg 93]a short time. If he had really contemplated a journey across the
sea, however, he gave up the idea at once, believing that loyalty to
his friend now made it his duty to "stand by."
"The bearer of this letter will describe to you the attractive
surroundings of the place I have chosen to stay in rather than to enjoy
the happiness of being with you," he wrote Adrienne. "After you know
in detail all the circumstances of my present position ... you will
approve of my course. I almost dare to say you will applaud me....
Besides the reason that I have given you, I have still another which
I should not mention to everybody, because it might appear that I was
assuming an air of ridiculous importance. My presence is more necessary
to the American cause at this moment than you may imagine. Many
foreigners who have failed to obtain commissions, or whose ambitious
schemes after having obtained them could not be countenanced, have
entered into powerful conspiracies; they have used every artifice to
turn me against this Revolution and against him who is its leader; and
they have taken every opportunity to spread the report that I am about
to leave the continent. The British have openly declared this to be so.
I cannot with good conscience play into the hands of these people. If I
were to go, many Frenchmen who are useful here would follow my example."
So he stayed at Valley Forge, which was indeed a place of icy torment.
The men suffered horribly for lack of coats and caps and shoes.
Their feet froze until they were black. Sometimes they had to be [Pg
94]amputated. There was not enough food. Even colonels rarely had
more than two meals a day, often only one, while the rank and file
frequently went for several days without a distribution of rations.
Enlistments ceased, and desertion was very easy with a wide-open
country back of the camp and Howe's sleek, well-fed army only two
marches away down the Lancaster Pike. It was small wonder that
Washington's numbers dwindled until he could count only five or six
thousand. Lafayette called the endurance of the wretched little army
that held on "a miracle which every day served to renew." It was a
miracle explained by the character of the Commander-in-chief, and of
the remarkable group of officers he had gathered around him. As for
Lafayette, he strove to live as frugally and be as self-denying as
any of them. More than forty years later some of his American friends
had proof of how well he succeeded; for an old soldier came up and
reminded him how one snowy night at Valley Forge he had taken a gun
from a shivering sentry and stood guard himself while he sent the man
to his own quarters for a pair of stockings and his only blanket; and
when these things were brought how he had cut the blanket in two and
given him half. Though there was cruel suffering in that winter camp,
there was much of such high-spirited gallantry to meet it; and there
were also pleasant hours, for several of the officers had been joined
by their wives, who did everything in their power to make the dull days
brighter.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON AND THE COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS AT VALLEY FORGE]
[Illustration: VALLEY FORGE--WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE]
[Pg 95]Washington's enemies, not yet having exhausted their wiles, hit
upon a clever plan to remove Lafayette from his side. They succeeded
in getting Congress to appoint a new War Board with General Gates at
its head. This body exercised authority, though Washington remained
Commander-in-chief. Without consulting him, the board decided, or
pretended to decide, to send a winter expedition into Canada, with
Lafayette at its head and Conway second in command. Conway had offered
his resignation at the time his letter was discovered, but it had not
been accepted. To emphasize the slight put upon Washington, Lafayette's
new commission was inclosed in a letter to the Commander-in-chief, with
the request that he hand it to the younger man. This Washington did
with admirable self-control, saying, as he gave Lafayette the paper, "I
would rather they had selected you for this than any other man."
It is not often that such important duty falls to a soldier of
twenty-one. Naturally enough, he was elated, and this duty was
particularly tempting because it offered him, a Frenchman, the chance
to go into a French province to reconquer a region which had been
taken from his own people by Britain in the Seven Years' War. But he
also was capable of exercising self-control, and he answered that he
could accept it only on the understanding that he remained subordinate
to Washington, as an officer of his army detailed for special duty,
with the privilege of making reports directly to him and of sending
duplicates to Congress. A committee of Congress happened to be visiting
[Pg 96]Valley Forge that day, and he went impetuously before them and
declared that he would rather serve as a mere aide under Washington
than accept any separate command the War Board could give him. His
conditions being agreed to, he departed happily enough for York,
Pennsylvania, where Congress was still holding its sittings, in order
to receive his instructions.
There, in General Gates's own house, at another dinner memorable in his
personal history, he got his first intimation of the kind of campaign
the War Board wished him to carry on. Toast after toast was drunk--to
the success of the northern expedition--to Lafayette and his brilliant
prospects--and on through a long list, to which he listened in growing
amazement, for he missed the most important of them all. "Gentlemen!"
he cried, finally, springing to his feet, "I propose the health of
General Washington!" and the others drank it in silence.
He refused to have Conway for his second in command, and asked that De
Kalb be detailed to accompany him instead. He proved so intractable, in
short, that even before he set out for Albany, where he was to assume
command, the conspirators saw it was useless to continue the farce; but
they allowed him to depart on his cold journey as the easiest way of
letting the matter end. The four hundred miles occupied two weeks by
sleigh and horseback, a most discouraging sample of what he must expect
farther north. "Lake Champlain is too cold for producing the least bit
of laurel," he wrote Washington. "I go very slowly, sometimes drenched
by rain, sometimes covered by snow, and not entertaining many [Pg
97]handsome thoughts about the projected incursion into Canada."
At Albany he found creature comforts, a bed, for one thing, with a
supply of quilts and blankets that made it entirely possible to sleep
without lying down in his clothes, which was a luxury he had scarcely
enjoyed since leaving Bethlehem; but of preparations for invading
Canada he found not one. The plans and orders that looked so well on
paper, and which he had been assured were well under way, had not been
heard of in Albany, or else had not been executed, for the best of
reasons; because they could not be. General Conway was there ahead of
him to represent the War Board, and told him curtly that the expedition
was not to be thought of. Astounded, the young general refused
to believe him until interviews with General Schuyler and others
experienced in northern campaigning convinced him that this at least
was not treachery, but cold, hard fact.
The discovery was a great blow to Lafayette's pride. Members of
Congress had urged him to write about the expedition to his friends
in France. He was frankly afraid that he would be laughed at "unless
Congress offers the means of mending this ugly business by some
glorious operation." But he was in no mood to ask favors of Congress.
"For you, dear General," he wrote Washington, "I know very well that
you will do everything to procure me the one thing I am ambitious
of--glory. I think your Excellency will approve of my staying on here
until further orders."
[Pg 98]March found him still at Albany, awaiting the orders which the
War Board was in no haste to send, having already accomplished its
purpose. He tried to retrieve something out of the hopeless situation,
but with fewer men than he had been promised, and these clamoring for
pay long overdue, he had little success. "Everybody is after me for
monney," he wrote General Gates, "and monney will be spoken of by me
till I will be enabled to pay our poor soldiers. Not only justice and
humanity, but even prudence obliges us to satisfy them soon." As he
had already done, and would do again, he drew upon his private credit
to meet the most pressing public needs; but he could work against the
enemy only in an indirect way by sending supplies to Fort Schuyler,
where they were sorely needed.
One interesting experience, unusual for a French nobleman, came to
him during this tedious waiting. The Indians on the frontier became
restless, and General Schuyler called a council of many tribes to meet
"at Johnson Town" in the Mohawk Valley. He invited Lafayette to attend,
hoping by his presence to reawaken the Indians' old partiality for the
French. Five hundred men, women, and children attended this council,
and very picturesque they must have looked with their tents and their
trappings against the snowy winter landscape. The warriors were as
gorgeous as macaws in their feathered war-bonnets, nose-jewels, and
brilliant paint, but Lafayette noted that they talked politics with the
skill of veterans, as the pipe passed from hand to hand.
[Pg 99]He appears to have exercised his usual personal charm for
Americans upon these original children of the soil as he had already
exercised it upon the whites who came to supplant them. But he says
of it only that they "showed an equal regard for his words and his
necklaces." Before the council was over he was adopted into one of the
tribes, and returned to Albany the richer by another name to add to his
long collection--"Kayewla," which had belonged to a respected chief of
a bygone day. The new Kayewla was so well liked that a band of Iroquois
followed him south and became part of his military division.
On his return to Albany an unexpected duty awaited him. A new form
of oath of office, forever forswearing allegiance to George III and
acknowledging the sovereignty and independence of the United States,
had come, with the order that all must subscribe to it. So, to use the
picturesque phrase of the Middle Ages, it was "between" his French
hands that the officers of the northern military department swore
fealty to the new United States of America.
As spring advanced the influence of Gates and Conway waned and
Washington regained his old place in public esteem. Conway himself left
the country. Lafayette and De Kalb were ordered back to the main army;
and in doing this Congress took pains to express by resolution its
belief that the young general was in no way to blame for the failure
of the winter expedition to Canada. When he reached Washington's
headquarters in April he found Valley Forge much less melancholy than
[Pg 100]when he left it; a change due not only to the more cheerful
season of the year, but to wonders in the way of improved discipline
that General von Steuben had brought about in a few short weeks.
This officer of much experience had been trained under Frederick the
Great, and, having served as his aide, was equipped in fullest measure
with the knowledge and skill in military routine that Washington's
volunteers so lacked. When he took up his duties he found a confusion
almost unbelievable to one of his orderly military mind. Military terms
meant nothing. A regiment might contain only thirty men, or it might
be larger than another officer's brigade. It might be formed of three
platoons or of twenty-one. There was one company that consisted of
only a single corporal. Each colonel drilled his men after a system of
his own; and the arms in the hands of these go-as-you-please soldiers
"were in a horrible condition--covered with rust, half of them without
bayonets," while there were many from which not a single shot could
be fired. Yet this was the main army of the revolutionists who had
set out to oppose England! Fortunately Baron von Steuben was no mere
drillmaster. He had the invaluable gift of inspiring confidence and
imparting knowledge. Between March, when he began his "intensive"
training, and the opening of the summer campaign, he made of that band
of lean and tattered patriots a real army, though it still lacked much
of having a holiday appearance. The men's coats gave no indication of
their rank, or indeed that they were in the army at all. They were
of many colors, including red, and it was not impossible to see an
[Pg 101]officer mounting guard at grand parade clad "in a sort of
dressing-gown made of an old blanket or woolen bedcover." But the man
inside the coat was competent for his job.
It was a compatriot of Lafayette's, the French Minister of War,
St.-Germain, who had persuaded General Steuben to go to America;
so to France is due part of our gratitude for the services of this
efficient German. Perhaps, going back farther, the real person we
should thank is General Burgoyne, since it was his surrender which
undoubtedly quickened the interest of the French in the efficiency
of our ragamuffin army. French official machinery, which had been
strangely clogged before, began to revolve when news of Burgoyne's
surrender reached Paris early in December, 1777. The king, who had
not found it convenient to receive the American commissioners up to
that time, sent them word that he had been friendly all along; and as
soon as diplomatic formality permitted, a treaty of amity and commerce
was signed between France and America. That meant that France was
now formally an ally, and that the United States might count upon
her influence and even upon her military help. It was a great point
gained, but Franklin refused to allow his old eyes to be dazzled by
mere glitter when he "and all the Americans in Paris" were received by
the king and queen at Versailles in honor of the event. He was less
impressed by the splendor of the palace than by the fact that it would
be the better for a thorough cleaning. After the royal audience was
[Pg 102]over he and the other commissioners hastened to pay a visit of
ceremony to young Madame Lafayette in order to testify to the part her
husband had played in bringing about this happy occurrence.
When news of the signing of this treaty reached America about the 1st
of May, 1778, Lafayette embraced his grave general in the exuberance of
his joy, and even kissed him in French fashion. There was an official
celebration in camp on the 7th of May, with much burning of gunpowder,
reviewing of troops, "suitable" discoursing by chaplains, and many
hearty cheers. Washington's orders prescribed in great detail just when
and how each part of the celebration was to be carried out, and this is
probably the only time in history that an American army _en masse_ was
ordered to cry, "Long live the king of France!"
Lafayette, with a white sash across his breast, commanded the left; but
it was a heavy heart that he carried under his badge that gala-day.
Letters which came to him immediately after news of the treaty had
brought sad tidings. He learned of the death of a favorite nephew,
loved by him like a son, and also that his oldest child, the little
Henriette, to whom he had been sending messages in every letter, had
died in the previous October. "My heart is full of my own grief, and
of yours which I was not with you to share," he wrote Adrienne. "The
distance from Europe to America never seemed so immense to me as it
does now.... The news came to me immediately after that of the treaty,
and while bowed down with grief I had to receive congratulations and
[Pg 103]take part in the public rejoicing." Had the letters come
through without delay they would have arrived at the beginning of
winter, at the moment when General Conway was fanning the flame of his
homesickness. The desire to comfort his wife might have turned the
scale and sent Lafayette across the sea instead of to Albany. Now,
though he longed to go to her, he felt bound to remain for the campaign
which was about to open.
[Pg 104]XII